Special fertiliser for tea industry, says President
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has told a special cabinet meeting on Thursday that special fertiliser can be brought down for use in the tea sector although this is not a reversal of the ban on chemical fertiliser application.
During the special cabinet meeting, Plantation Minister Ramesh Pathirana had stated that the tea industry is in dire need of stocks of fertiliser required for use on the plantation and explained that this is a key foreign exchange earner to the country, a ministerial source said.
In response to this request the President had stated that they can import a special fertiliser for the tea industry.
It is learnt that this special fertiliser is likely to be new varieties of fertiliser available specially for the tea sector. As a temporary measure, chemical fertiliser would be imported.
Tea Board Chairman Jayampathy Molligoda told the Business Times that this meant there will be certain organic inputs brought down and since there is a slight deficiency in Nitrogen, “we are trying to see if we can use some minerals”.
Meanwhile, the government is currently working on organic fertiliser samples obtained from India for use during this Maha season while authorities confirmed there is currently no third sample testing from the same Chinese company that was awarded the tender to import sterile solid organic fertiliser.
“There is no third sample and the ship has already gone away so that ends the story,” Agriculture Department Director General Dr. Ajantha De Silva told the Business Times on Wednesday.
He noted that if something is due to arrive from the same Chinese company that was awarded the tender to supply sterile organic fertiliser, Qingdao Seawin Biotech, then it would have to be a fresh sample or some other compound.
Suppliers have stated that since Sri Lanka is in close proximity to India they are able to obtain these fertiliser stocks upon approval within 10 days.
Commenting on the possible blacklisting of the Qingdao company against the provision of sterile organic fertiliser, he noted that this was a matter left to the two state fertilizer companies and pertaining to the bid document conditions.
Currently they are working with some samples from India and China and so far two Indian products are said to be in compliance with the Plant Protection Ordinance but now it has to obtain clearance from the National Fertilizer Secretariat (NFS), he said.
Meanwhile, the local AgStar company that has imported a stock of Urea was allowed to distribute this among tea smallholders following a court decision. This stock was held up at the warehouse of the company for two months by the Customs Department.
At present the government is hoping to rely on the locally available liquid nitrogen fertiliser and is likely to identify two suppliers from India to purchase organic fertiliser in future.